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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  December 10, 2012 4:00am-5:00am EST

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let's get you up to speed on the day's headlines. president barack obama and house speaker john boehner met face to face at the white house today. no details on their conversations but refs for both sides say the lines of communication remain open. the last time the president and the speaker met in person to talk about the fiscal cliff was more than three weeks ago. just after midnight on sunday gay couples in washington state made history.
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the voter approved referendum was signed into law on wednesday. venezuelan president yugo chavez is returning to cuba for more cancer surgery. this time he is making sure a new leader is in place in case he doesn't return. he named the vice president as his choice for his choice in case something happens to him. he's scheduled to be swarn in for a new six-year term on january 10th. some very sad news for fans of music superstar jenny rivera. they have found the wreckage of the private jet believing to be carrying the popular mexican-american singer and six others. the plane lost contact early this morning. so far, no cause has been given for that crash. the menorah has been
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illuminated tonight, marking the start of hanukkah. of course, no hanukkah celebration would be complete without the spinning dradel. you're getting slammed right now by a major winter storm in the great lakes area. it's the most snow in the minneapolis area so far this season and we're still a week and a half away from the start of winter. a few more inches will accumulate tonight. that storm will bring rain to new england tomorrow. we have more now on those fiscal cliff talks today between president obama and house speaker john boehner. emily schmidt is in washington. >> reporter: it this been 23 days since president obama and house speaker john boehner met face to face to talk about how to avert it. that's until they met this afternoon. this was a surprise meeting. nobody spotted boehner coming or going.
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nobody is saying much beyond two statements, one from the white house, from one boehner's office. the wording here is identical, ening with this, the lines of communication remain open. the two men last spoke by phone on wednesday. ontry, mr. boehner said the white house had wasted another week for potential compromise. we don't know what prompted this meeting, just that for the first time in a while, the two sides are agreeing on something even if it's just the wording of their statements and keeping tight lipped about what was said. don? >> emily, thank you very much. in today's meetings between president obama and speaker boehner, is it a sign we're close to a fiscal cliff deal? i asked cnn senior political analyst david gergen. >> they recognize the deadlines are coming at them fast and this week is a crucial week to see if they can get a breakthrough. they did it in private instead of the political theater we've been seeing is over the last couple weeks. i think that's encouraging.
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don, we should be patient here. there's even a bigger long-term issue and that is whether the kind of agreement they could reach now will lead to a grand bargain or whether it will lead to a mouse instead of an elephant. we don't know that yet. we'll have to wait and see how what they can craft this week and see indeed if they can get past the fiscal cliff. that's point one. in some ways, don, what's at stake here is whether they can craft a deal that's win/win. that each side can walk away from something in the short term saying we're encouraged, this gives us greater reason to go on and engage in the grand bargain next year. this is a moment, don, when a lot of things are hanging in the balance. the talks, having to actually sit down today is encouraging. they don't want to take this all the way to the 11th hour in the 59th minute. they want to see if they can get a breakthrough now. that's encouraging. >> cnn's david gergen. are there hints that the republicans and democrats are moving closer together on a
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budget deal? we'll talk about that, next. >> announcer: you never know when, but thieves can steal your identity and turn your life upside down. >> hi. >> hi. you know, i can save you 15% today if you open up a charge card account with us. >> you just read my mind. >> announcer: just one little piece of information and they can open bogus accounts, stealing your credit, your money and ruining your reputation. that's why you need lifelock to relentlessly protect what matters most... [beeping...] helping stop crooks before your identity is attacked. and now you can have the most
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elsie granderson, and navarro. we have the senior writer for espn. good to see both of you. okay? >> yes. >> boehner had pretty tough words for the president on friday. let's listen. >> there is a lot of things possible to put the revenue on the table but none of it will be possible if the president insists on his position and insist on my way or the highway. >> anna, he also said the white house has wasted another week, and now two days later, they are meeting again. did boehner's remarks make the difference? >> good. i think it's great. we cannot reach a deal if you are posturing and negotiating through press conferences. they need to sit in a room and look at each other. they need to talk constructive debate and they need to move this ball forward. i think what happened today is a very good sign.
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americans should be encouraged, it's a good thing when the congressional leadership and the president are actually capable of meeting and talking about the difficult issues that face this country. what a refreshing and new idea. >> when you hear people like -- so you hear members of the gop and chand lilis, corker, and they are saying he will only do this, and then the messaging that you hear on television is quite different than what is actually being said behind closed doors. i think you make a good point, ana. do you agree there seems to be competing messaging going on here? >> they have to do the posturing to make sure the public stays on their side of it, and the constituents look like they are doing what they said they would do, and this is the only way they will get anything done, sitting in a room and hashing it out. and listen, both of these men are very, very pragmatic.
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they're both very cautious guys. they're not as extreme as some of the voices in their parties happen to be. you have two politicians in washington doing what needs to be done for the better of the country, and i agree it's a good thing, and maybe they went to see lincoln together to see if they can get something done like lincoln did. >> like a bromance going on. >> don, i think senator coker put up a very good point. this is not the end-all, be-all of negotiations. there's a lot of big and hairy problems facing the country that president obama and congress will want done, that congress will want done, so there's a lot of room and space and time, four long years of negotiations. sometimes the democrats will have more leverage and sometimes the republicans will have more leverage. >> there you go. right. people yell it's not fair, it's not fair, everybody does it.
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>> it's not even four years. we will have a debt ceiling conversation in a few months. >> right, right. >> you have to remember that this is rapid fire. as soon as we get passed the fiscal cliff, president obama will have to meet again with boehner to discuss the debt ceiling. >> thank you, ana, thank you, lz. steven baldwin was arrested and when he was released he wanted to come on this show and explain himself. that's next.
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stephen baldwin was arrested this week in new york. the district attorney says he owes more than $350,000 for not paying his state taxes for three years. he pleaded not guilty. baldwin said he paid $100,000 already to new york state. earlier he told me he knew all this was coming. >> i've been in a conversation about this very thing for several months now. and, again, i'm not trying to be
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funny when i say this. i'm grateful these guys are giving me a chance to work it out. it's a tough situation because it wasn't me specifically, as you know, don, you have people do your taxes for you, et cetera, et cetera. it wasn't handled appropriately. i am ultimately responsible but i am in a conversation and we are communicating with them and what i'm told is that we're going to be able to work it out. i'm hoping that's the end result. >> but for you, explain to the audience what happened. >> well -- i don't want to cry in my coffee here, but the long story short is when i moved out of doing my normal career and mainstream secular hollywood and started to get into mostly faith-based stuff, it changed my income a whole lot. that led to a lot of inexperience on my part, and then i had a very public bankruptcy filing because i have been trying to maintain all this stuff and then i got hit with the bad situation that i am in
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right now with some accountants that didn't represent me appropriately, so it has been a domino affect. the blessing is, to be honest with you, in the wake of what has happened in the last 48 hours i have had nothing but really positive support from business people, partners i am involved with with stuff i have coming in the new year that will be helpful to straightening all this out. i am looking forward to looking into that and looking there and staying positive and being successful and paying my taxes. >> if you were in negotiations and you knew what was going on, how did that turn into an arrest, stephen? >> that's part of the conversation that we've been having with these folks, was that sometimes, don, when you're in a certain position, things happen a certain way. as i said before -- >> come on, stephen, you have
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always been very up front with me every time i have you on the air. what do you mean by that? >> i think that -- listen, i assume responsibility for this and i think that when you're in a certain position of visibility and you don't do things the right way, legally they have the right to come down on you in a certain way so that other people say to themselves, well, maybe i should do the right thing. that's part of the situation, i believe, i'm in right now. i'm just hopeful it's going to be the end result will be that i can move forward, stay positive, be successful in the business that i have coming in the new year. >> because you're a celebrity, you think they made an example out of you? >> well, listen, i think that's not something that we have not seen in the past that hasn't been true. i don't want to sugar coat one thing. i have the utmost respect for
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the people that i am in the conversation with, the rocklin county d.a. is upset and i want to do the right thing and get this bill paid. i can do it, i just have to get back to work. >> okay, good. so then can you explain this mug shot to me? because some people compared this mug shot to zoo lander because it looks like you're posing here. you look like zoolander in that mug shot. what was going on with you? >> i think we will share in this, don, when you take in the photos, you are used to, like, one expression a lot of the time, and -- >> you made that pose with your daughter in that picture, right? that's your pose. is that your -- what does -- is that your magnum? >> well, i look at it this way, if i am in the situation i am in, i might as well have a decent mugshot.
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>> give me the pose? strike a pose. how was it? >> you are not going to really make me do this, are you? >> yeah. i'm gonna make you do it. come on. >> does that work. is that good? >> you are such a good sport. >> you are, too. thank you for letting me come on and talk about this. >> stephen has a charity. we'll put it online for you. it's his mom's charity. we'll put it online for you. look for it on our blog. in michigan they're working to pass a right to work law. some workers in the state are not happy about one thing, and that's next. you don't have to inbound front of a television to watch cnn, you can do it if your computer at work, go to cnn.com/tv.
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this is a terrible story out of western pennsylvania. a little boy, 7 years old, shot to death in the parking lot of this gun store north of pittsburgh. police say the boy was buckling himself into a car seat when the
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pistol his father was handling in the front seat accidentally went off. can you imagine? the bullet hit the boy and he died at the scene. the father could face charges over this. authorities say he is beside himself. >> the father is traumatized and visibly shaken. it's -- experienced probably the worst tragedy anybody can go through is to take your own son's life. >> officers that talked to the father say he was not aware that his pistol was even loaded. president barack obama visits union heavy michigan tomorrow, a state he won easily last month and now the center of new labor protests. the michigan legislature is close to passing a right to work law and that is not sitting well with workers in the state where organized labor was born. united auto workers is firmly against the law which limits the union's power. michigan's republican governor says he'll sign the bill if it hits his desk this week.
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it's been dubbed the fireball over texas. a bright light was seen streaking across the houston sky friday morning and for a few hours it was the walk of the town. debra wrigley of ktrk has the story. >> reporter: from a nasa camera, it looked like a bright light above the earth. that's the view from space. these are from eyewitness viewers around houston area, just as day was breaking, a bright flash of light that some people first thought was lightning. >> i was like i guess it's going to rain. >> reporter: it wasn't the weather and it was spotted all around texas. this map just a sampling of sightings in the houston area, and these are some of the pictures sent to abc13.com. showing a small area of colored light. others showing a trail behind it. and people have been talking about it all day. >> like a ufo, taking a picture of the sky, like a big flash. >> co-workers who are talking about did you hear about the flash this morning? i'm like, flash?
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should i be concerned? >> reporter: at the houston museum of natural science, not concern, but a lot of curiosity. >> it's going so fast it actually gets through the atmosphere. that makes the glow. >> the museum's astronomer suspects it's a meteorite, a small piece of rock burning through space. if it meets the criteria. >> did it make a trail, did it actually move, did it change color, did it move from east to west? >> reporter: a lot of scientists searching for an explanation of what's called the fireball over texas. a lot of people who aren't scientists as well. >> i've heard so many different things about 2012, so it's kind of scary, because it's getting closer to that date. >> that was debra wrigley reporting. nasa has since cleared up the confusion. the flashing light, a meteor. changing the look of our men and women in uniform and the military they might even take a page out of "harry potter." that's next.
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almost half passed the hour. let's get a look at the headlines now. president obama and house speaker john boehner met face to face at the white house today to try and prevent the fiscal cliff that's now just 23 days away. we don't have much on details, their conversation, but reps from both sides say lines of communication remain open. the president and house speaker have not met face to face in at least three weeks.
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and here is oklahoma senator, tom coburn. >> so will i accept a tax increase as a part of a deal to actually solve our problems? yes. >> president obama wants republicans to sign off on the wealthy tax hike before any negotiations about spending cuts begin. a cloud of political uncertainty hanging over venezuela. president hugo chavez announced that his cancer has return and he's traveling to cuba for surgery for a third time. this time, the 58-year-old leader, named the vice president as his choice to replace him in case something were to happen to happen. a man who shot three people to death on an indian reservation in california has been killed. police near fresno were involved in the shootout with the man who reportedly opened fire earlier
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on several people, three of whom died. his two young daughters were wounded, and police chased the suspect and said he shot at them, too. no word yet on what prompted his rampage. the national menorah in front of the white house, illuminated tonight, marking the eight-day start of the jewish holiday hanukkah. ♪ of course, no hanukkah celebration would be complete without a spinning draddel. this was performed by the u.s. navy band. the fiscal cliff grabbing the headlines in washington. but that's not the only big event at the nation's capital. next month, president obama will be inaugurated for a second term and that means plenty of turnover among his top advisers. emily schmitt has a look at the upcoming cabinet.
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>> reporter: this -- >> this is a wonderful opportunity for me to meet with my full cabinet. >> reporter: maybe the last glimpse of this picture. >> he wants to put together a team, especially in international affairs, a team overall that going into a second term doesn't look like a second team, does not look like a group of second stringers. >> reporter: the likely short list to succeed secretary of state hillary clinton, is also politically charged. susan rice is thought to be a leading contender, but some republicans have been highly critical of rice following the attack on the u.s. consulate in libya. >> when they go after the u.n. ambassador, apparently because they think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me. >> senator mccain? >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. >> senator john mccain jokingly gave the cabinet post nod to democrat john kerry, the senate foreign relations committee chairman. >> i think john kerry would be an excellent appointment and
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would be easily confirmed by his colleagues. >> kerry is also list as a potential defense secretary to replace leon panetta. it's a list that includes michelle flornoy. and former nebraska senator, chuck hagel, a republican, could represent a teach across the aisle. >> we are in a stronger position today as a country than we were in '08. >> reporter: treasury secretary tim geithner said he will stay at his post at least until inauguration. and the chief of staff is often named as a potential replacement. a poll asked if he thought president obama would pick good cabinet members. 58% said they thought he would. 42% said he would not. emily schmidt, cnn, washington. >> the u.s. military wants its people to be invisible, literally. and somebody will pocket a lot
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of money if they can come up with the camouflage of the future. and we're not talking about leaves and sticks here, and chris lawrence reports on one scientists that can make soldiers disappear. >> reporter: camouflage could mean the difference between a soldier getting shot and going home. so a lot is riding on the next generation designed to outfit troops. it's only been eight years since the army spent $5 billion on cam mow that critics say didn't fool anyone. soldiers complained to the point army abandoned its one size fits all universal pattern. >> they were looking for camouflage that they could use everywhere? >> correct, and it didn't work anywhere. >> reporter: guy cramer is one of the designers working to win the army's next multimillion dollar contract. this summer he showed us the science behind every size and shade of these pixels.
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>> reporter: digital pattern creates things already found in nature and 3-d layering creates depth and shadows where none exist. that's today's design. developers already have one eye on tomorrow. >> what's coming up down the road and very quickly is the harry potter cloak. >> reporter: with that fictional cloak, harry isn't just cam flojd, he's invisible. >> my body's gone! >> reporter: how invisible am i talking here? if i walked into a room with a soldier wearing a cloak? >> you wouldn't see him at all. he would be completely invisible to you. >> reporter: this is not make believe. it's a quantum stelth technology. it works by bending light around an object. it's concealing most of a person's shadow. imagine what that could do with a sniper hiding in a field. or the american pilots ejected over libya when their fighter
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jets crashed last year. >> they could pull out similar to what they carry with a survival blanket, throw it over top of them. and unless you walked right into them, you wouldn't know they were there. >> reporter: what was once firmly in the world of make believe could quickly become quite real. and the science is in the special fabric. so you don't need a power source or some instruction manual to make it work. theoretically, any soldier, even in the most remote location could quickly put it on and put it to work. chris lawrence, cnn, the pentagon. >> what will they think of next? nba legend sits down to talk with me about his incredible life and facing death. >> i thought about my own mortality a number of times, especially since i've been diagnosed with leukemia. that's the first thing you think about. all of a sudden you realize there's a clock up there with your name on it and the clock is
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ticking. >> i talked with kareem abdul-jabbar, next. >> announcer: 'tis the season of more-- more shopping, more dining out... and along with it, more identity theft. by the time this holiday season is over, an estimated 1.2 million identities may be stolen. every time you pull out your wallet, shop online or hit the road, you give thieves a chance to ruin your holiday. by the time you're done watching this, as many as 40 more identities may be stolen. you can't be on the lookout 24/7, but lifelock can.
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or go to lifelock.com/holidays. it only takes minutes to sign up. use promo code: holidays. order now and get a special holiday gift: a document shredder to keep sensitive documents out of the wrong hands... a $29 value, free! call the number on your screen or go online and let lifelock protect your identity for 60 days risk-free. because during the holidays, keeping your identity protected means keeping your family protected. he is nba royalty. one of the best basketball players of all-time, kareem abdul-jabbar. he thrilled millions of fans with the sky hook, his trademark move on the court. a six-time mv. . he also is the nba's all-time leading scorer. what you may not know about
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abdul-jabbar is that he is among thousands of americans living with leukemia. as a paid spokesman for the makers of the drug therapy he takes, he sees his diagnose not as a death sentence but as a manageable disease. >> december of 2008 i was diagnosed. it came after a long series of night sweats and stuff that would come and go. it was months. i really should have gone and talked to my doctor about it earlier, and i thought it was just me getting older. and it was really symptoms of the type of leukemia i have which is called cml. chronic myaloid leukemia. i think for me being able to give other cml patients some encouragement and give them an idea that they are not alone, and that they can treat their condition and survive is very
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important, so that's why i am partnering with novartis has been very important to me, because it has enabled me to live with my life to the fullest. i have thought about my own mortality a number of times especially since i was diagnosed with leukemia. that's the first thing you think about. all of a sudden you realize there's a clock up there with your name on it and the clock is ticking. >> what would your day be like without the drug? >> i have to take my medication every day and i have to see my doctor and consult with him a couple times a year, four times a year. i get my blood tested to make sure the goals that we're trying to achieve are being met. >> but if that drug was not there, what would it be like? >> if that drug was not there, i probably would have had to undergo bone marrow transplant or something of that nature to try and lick it. >> it seems that we have reached a turning point when it comes to
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marijuana helping out with those diseases. it's been legalized in certain places, medical marijuana in california and on and on. what do you think about for the treatment of leukemia? where do you stand on that? >> the safest thing to do is talk to a hematologist who knows what he's talking about and know what works. and go with that. a lot of people suggest folk remedies that don't work. they're talking with people in all four corners of the world. i remember reading about certain plants that grow in the amazon basin that are unique to that area that could have benefits for people, so you know, gold is where you find it. >> you're a huge jazz fan, right? >> yes. >> you have a big collection. a lot of it was lost in a fire. >> all my vinele is gone. >> i just started collecting
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vinyl. you must have been heartbroken. >> there was a big blob of vinyl in my front yard. the technology was changing at that point from vinyl to cd, and i have been able to get most of what i lost on cd, and it has not been that much of a loss, although it has taken 20 to 30 years to replace everything. >> climbing to cruise at 42,000. we'll report again over lincoln. >> but, you know, that movie, i think that everybody that works in the airline industry watches that movie. i was flying in europe on another airline, and the pilot, it was a really big plane that had extra seats in the cockpit, and before we took off one of the pilots came out and said come with me, and i went into the cockpit and they strapped me in and we took off and now we can tell everybody we flew with murdoch. >> roger murdoch. i'm an airline pilot.
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i'm like, what? but that actually happened. >> what is taller? you or the statue? >> the statue is taller and it's taller than every other statue. i am closest to the street so everybody sees my statue first. >> how tall? >> 17 feet. >> it's an acknowledgment of what i achieved. >> what prompted you to write a children's book? >> i had an issue with the fact that so many kids, especially inner city kids don't think they can be a success unless they are involved in sports or entertainment. you take a young man growing up in harlem or the south side of chicago or here in atlanta and he wants to be jay-z, and he wants to be lebron james or denzel washington and he doesn't really see how wide the world is in terms of where he can be successful. i would tell any of the guys coming along, pursue your dreams as athletes. it's certainly something that's worthwhile but don't forget you have a mind. i always try to tell people that
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i can do more than stuff a ball through a hoop. my mind is my greatest asset. that should be the case for them. >> kareem abdul-jabbar, thank you. now to the big stories of the week ahead, from white house to wall street and hollywood, our correspondents tell you what you need to know. we begin tonight with the president's plan for the week. >> i'm dan lothian at the white house. on monday, president obama hits the road again, this time going to redford, michigan, where he will continue his campaign to put pressure on lawmakers in order to prevent taxes from going up on the middle class. also we will be standing by to see if the white house makes any cabinet nominations especially who will replace secretary of state hillary clinton when she steps down. >> i am alison kosik at the new york stock exchange. facebook will get a new home this week, moving to the nasdaq 100. it's an elite index made up of the 100 biggest nonfinancial companies on the market. we'll also get november retail sales. expectations are high because of
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a record-breaking black friday weekend. meantime, the federal reserve meets on interest rates and will have a new outlook on the economy. and fedex preparing for its busiest day in history and the company expect to move 19 million packages monday as people rush to make online purchases in time for christmas. follow that and more on cnnmoney.com. i'm "showbiz tonight's" a.j. hammer. rihanna, nicki minaj, lady gaga, "showbiz tonight" is counting down the most provocative celebrities of the entire year. so much drama but which star will come out on top? it's the "showbiz" countdown that can't be missed. >> thank you very much. the bombing of pearl harbor, and cnn sat down with one soldier that was there to hear his incredible story. eóoç=ñp
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here is one of the 16 million americans who answered the call of service, and now he is sharing his chilling stories from war and the memories that have haunted him ever since. >> december 7th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy.
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>> i actually enlisted in january of 1943. i would have been drafted anyway, but i was anxious to get after the people who started this whole war after pearl harbor. so i found myself on board a troop ship in december of 1943 on the way to southampton, england. my name is mort waitzman. i was in the 29th infantry division. i was assigned to a communications intercept place where we intercepted german radio to help break down the german enigma code. as d-day approached, our job, our mission, was to board the ship and be prepared for d-day whenever it actually took place.
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and we soon found out that it was supposed to be june 5th, and the weather was bad and general eisenhower made it june 6th. i was at the beach at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. when those doors opened up, our job was to move out fast. enemy fire was very intense. and had very, very heavy casualties at the beach. 7,000 or 8,000 of our group was killed or wounded at that beach. there was a smell -- the smell of exploding gun powder and shortly afterwards, the smell of people bodies being torn apart. the smell of human flesh. it was an experience that any of
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us that any of us who experienced this, it was difficult from having recall that makes life difficult sometimes. those of us who survive ready very thankful, obviously. i know stories of comrades whose war was over that first day they were so badly injured or lost a limb or something like that. and their war was over. i try not to think too much about this all the time. you have to go on with life. we needed to move on to our primary objectives beyond the beach, more deeply into france, in normandy. and i was eventually assigned to one general's army. january 5th, 1944. it was a warm welcome to the americans they saw that day. the french were delighted.
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they threw flowers and kisses and so on. after the liberation of paris, our mission was to move rapidly eastward, general patton with his tank division was moving rapidly. we followed him in the liberation of belgium, lutzenburg -- luxembourg and into holland in 1944. were we getting close to the time of the battle of the bulge. we then got back our artillery forces and the support groups and we proceeded to attack across into germany. >> there's much more to the story. next, the images he will never be able to forget.
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71 years ago following the bombing of pearl harbor, the u.s. entered world war ii. they then moveded into rmany and witnessed firsthand horrors of the haolocaust. you're about to see stark images of the war, sights that waitzman say still live with him to this very day. >> our first contact is what we call the holocaust. there was a city of dinslaken.
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we were greeted with thousands of dead bodies. it was conveyed to us later that the germans poured gasoline on people and burn them alive. we went to nordhausen. we went to this camp. after neutralizing their fire and lowering down the gates, we were again greeted by thousands of dead bodies. we came to a crematorium area. there were 10 or 12 ovens in that camp. most of them the doors were very hot. we got them open, found bones and ashes. we had no idea what to do for these poor people. we gave them sips of water and to not try to do anything else. the medical detachment got there shortly afterwards and did what they had to do.
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it was impossible to conceive man's inhumanity to a fellow man. american soldiers, a bunch of innocent guys, didn't know such terrible things in life and they were being exposed to all this. it affected us terribly. >> the 9th army pounds grimly along the northern road through the roar toward berlin. >> this was rapidly approaching toward early may of 1945. the russians occupied the -- and at the same time, hitler -- >> general eisenhower informs me that the forces of germany have surrendered to the united nations. >> you think that this is great, we can go home now. but there was the little issue
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of the japanese who started this whole thing with pearl harbor. well, the atom bombs were dropped in august of 1945. and that war was over. >> the japanese have signed terms of unconditional surrender. ♪ >> i first got over the radio what had taken place and i immediately broadcast it over my radio system to all the other troops. we're going home! it's over, it's over, it's over. i returned to commemorate the d-day anniversary, it was overwhelming. i -- i got to those beaches in
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norman normandy, and i remember getting vials of sand and visualing the sand was red even 50 years later. taking my family through the military cemetery where 10,000 of my comrades were bury ied, i could have been there. life was good to me. but to these guys, there they were. they had nothing after they were 19 years old, 18 years old. we fought and we died for the purposes that we all know about but it's still very elicit to us, the purple -- purpose of liberty and how we treated our fellow man. we're still trying to learn that lesson. what there is in the human mind that makes it so difficult to learn, i don't know. but i talk as frequently as i can now, as

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